West Virginia Resiliency of Children, a professional development program for early care educators in West Virginia focusing on the life-long impact of their relationships with children. This 8-part series provides insights and strategies for fostering trust, autonomy, and initiative to facilitate the growth of attachment and resiliency skills in children.

West Virginia’s Resource and Referral Behavior Consultants will be presenting the training throughout the state to providers in center and home-based child care, and Head Start and pre-K programs. Helping early childhood educators build these positive relationships with young children leads not only to greater success in school and in life for the children, but also to greater job satisfaction for the adults who care for them.

The key project developers are Annette Santella, Fred Rogers Company Professional Development Specialist, and Saun Floyd, Behavior Consultant Coordinator for the Early Care and Education Unit of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services. Funding was provided by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) 2009.

Additional learning components of WV ROCS include a series of animated vignettes, video clips about trust and resilience delivered by West Virginia Family Therapist Jim Harris, and a variety of video clips from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and our other professional development workshops.

Just as Fred Rogers built his Neighborhood programs around the central theme of building relationships with the viewing audience and between his human and puppet neighbors, WV ROCS is designed to offer practical, everyday ways to enhance quality emotional attachments between children and the people who care for them.